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Sunday, February 10, 2013

The hollow men

In Book 3 of Ovid’s Metamorphoses we find a version of the story of Narcissus.Son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope, Narcissus was stunningly
handsome but haughty, breaking the hearts of many women by refusing them his attention, including the unfortunate Echo. In Conon’s Narrations, the unrequited lovers are all males, one of whom commits suicide on Narcissus’ doorstep.In both, at least one such heartbroken person utters the wish that Narcissus learn the pain he has inflicted on others … a wish
Nemesis hears and grants.

So one day, while Narcissus is out hunting, Nemesis leads
him to a pool of particular clarity and reflectivity.Stooping to get himself a drink, Narcissus
sees his own reflection and falls desperately in love with himself.Ovid portrays him as initially deceived into
thinking the reflection is of someone else; nevertheless, eventually he learns
the truth, yet can’t stop gazing at his mirror image.Eventually, he either wasted away or
committed suicide; not much to choose between the two.

There is another story about Narcissus [writes Pausanias in
the second century], less popular indeed than the other, but not without some
support. It is said that Narcissus had a twin sister; they were exactly alike
in appearance, their hair was the same, they wore similar clothes, and went
hunting together. The story goes on that Narcissus fell in love with his
sister, and when the girl died, would go to the spring, knowing that it was his
reflection that he saw, but in spite of this knowledge finding some relief for
his love in imagining that he saw, not his own reflection, but the likeness of
his sister.[1]

Over the last thirty years, the words narcissist and narcissism
have been cropping up more frequently.As with other psychological terms, they stand in the usual danger of
being turned into “psychobabble” by non-professional use, just as “anal-retentive”
gets sloppily applied to people who are detail-oriented or highly disciplined
in their personal lives.

As generally used, narcissistic
often describes someone who’s self-centered, vain, conceited or egotistical,
and in fact it is closely related to those characteristics.Typical traits of the narcissist include
self-focus in interpersonal exchanges, problems in sustaining satisfying
relationships, difficulty with empathy, hypersensitivity to insults both real
and imagined, flattery to those who admire them, hatred for those who don’t
affirm them, and lack of remorse or gratitude.

We are all the protagonists of our own stories.But within the category of protagonist lie a lot of different
roles, both active and passive, ranging from the hero to the comic relief to
the victim.The narcissist is the hero of his own story; in fact, he’s the only
person of interest in the story.Even
when he’s a victim, he’s no ordinary victim but rather a martyr for some great
cause.He recognizes the existence of
others so far as they feed his sense of self-worth, and discards them or even
reacts abusively when they stop affirming his unique specialness.

The narcissist will go to almost any length needed to
maintain his heroic self-image, bending reality around him as a black hole
bends light, arrogating to himself all possible praise and dumping on others all
possible blame. At the worst, the
narcissist can be a manipulator and a pathological liar, completely unable to
accept responsibility for his own acts — in other words, a sociopath.

Of course, I’m describing the narcissist in full bloom. People can be narcissistic to greater or
lesser degrees; in fact, many mental-health professionals posit a “healthy
narcissism” that could be better described as the self-assurance of a properly
developed personality.From the
Christian perspective, self-love as such is not improper; indeed, how could we
love our neighbors as ourselves if we didn’t love ourselves first?

However, the common complaint that we are becoming an
increasingly narcissistic culture isn’t grounded in the idea of a “healthy
narcissism”, nor is the scornful term “entitlement society” solely about
transfer payments.True narcissism
entails a sense of entitlement to affirmation and special treatment, and reacts
badly to denial. To a narcissist, all
criticism is meant to belittle and destroy, never to correct or improve, because
the narcissist doesn’t see in himself a need for correction or improvement.

Moreover, both community and family building require a degree
of ability to subordinate oneself to the needs of others, to recognize that
others have claims which precede or take priority over ours.The
narcissist cannot share the spotlight, let alone relinquish it to someone
or something else.This leaves him
unable to sustain a long-term relationship, and prone to fits of rage when his
primacy is denied or challenged, seeking revenge in different ways, from social
withdrawal, to sadistic verbal abuse, to physical violence at the worst.

Narcissism is on the increase in the West; that much seems
to be taken for granted.However,
outside of grumping about it, we hear very few propositions about how to come
to grips with it … or even whether to confront it.

And perhaps it’s no big worry.After all, what could be wrong with a society
of superficially charming egotists who lie and manipulate without compunction,
who have no sense of self-sacrifice or self-denial?

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This site is not an official organ of the Holy Catholic Church.The opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of the author, and are not to be construed to express the opinions of the Holy See or the Dioceses of Fort Worth and Dallas. Doctrinal discussions should be considered authoritative only so far as the relevant official documents of the Catholic Church are quoted; any errors of interpretation or explanation are the author's alone, and I would appreciate correction.

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